Relating to a printing apparatus, the conventional technology using a ring structure for a recording buffer is suggested in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 59-121432. The conventional technology is configured by an address pointer for storage of print data in a memory area, an address pointer for retrieval of data, and a print data count register for management of a blank area in the memory area with a view to efficiently using the memory of a cyclic area.
However, when a common ring buffer structure in the conventional technology is applied to a recording apparatus for full-color printing, it can be successfully applied to the recording head of one color, but there occurs the problem with the recording heads of other plural colors that data storage areas cannot be sufficiently reserved.
Furthermore, although a multicolor ring buffer structure is configured, the buffer structure is first assigned to each color. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare an area although there is no data to be printed. As a result, an efficient use of a memory area is next to impossible.